“Halt!" cried that dreadful voice from the heavens. “Halt! Fall in! Stack arms! Officers, prepare to surrender your swords at an oblique angle! Thrusting the right foot one foot forward and taking hold of the right trouser-leg with the right hand: Ex-pose... HOSE! Sergeants of the 3rd Graustark Chasseurs, take the names of those officers wearing green striped stockings, daresay they patronize the same haberdasher in Port Said, what do you mean by wearing green striped stockings at a formal surrender, you dumb sons of bitches!” There was no disobeying that dreadful voice in the sky, and when a battalion of Ruritanian Regulars attempted to sneak away, the Autogondola sailed along their line of cook-fires {lovely up-drafts!) and dropped what were really not howitzer shells but boxes of Brunk-stuff right into the fires; the confected fuel at once pulverized and exploded, sending hot pilaff flying just about everywhere; also the Prince Rupert-Michael was almost struck by an aerial grenade which very oddly left his coat smelling like a rather low-grade champagne; funny.
It was with a complete mixture of humiliation, fear, and relief that they heard themselves being let off with a mere fine for “Having Entered into the Disputed Areas Without the Conjoint Consents of the Emperor, the Sultan, the Woywode of Western Wallachia and the Grand Mameluke of Neo-Macedonia, to the Great Affront of All of Them”; the fine being, well, never mind what the fine being, and officers of flag rank were ordered to take it in large bills from the Pay Chests and drop it into the basket now descending to eye-level; no sooner was the basket filled than it was zipped up out of sight again and a voice with a strong American accent was heard counting its contents.
The implacable Voice from above now announced that torches be lit and that all Ruritanian troops at once march for Graustark and all Graustarker troops march at once for Rumania: they marched. Long after the huffing-puffing creature had ceased to snuffle and hiss back and forth checking on them, breathing redly in the dark, they kept on marching. They didn’t dare not.
The Autogondola descended to take on water and conserve fuel by
resting in the deserted camp for the night.
The World Tribunal has long been occupied with the cases of Grau- stark vs. Ruritania and Rumania vs. Graustark.
Meanwhile, back at the Palace:
Ignats Louis, Emperor of, etc., etc., was gloomily taking his postbreakfast walk in the Gardens when a figure detached itself from a rake, and, bowing, asked permission to speak. Granted. “Guess what I seen this mornin a-comin to work, Your Imperialness?” “Tell me, Genorf. We know you wouldn’t lie . . . not to We, anyway.”
Genorf, I. Pal. Gard. Rakeman, Upper Div., said that in coming to work that morning he passed close by the Old Fair Grounds at usual and was surprised to see there on dry ground a boat like with red sails like. And then come along this red-haired woman Gazinka Somethingovna, what they say she’s a witch and in she got to the boat and with no more about it off sailed the boat only it like sailed up ... in the very general direction of Wallachia or Macedonia or Graustark maybe or Ruritania rather: and might she lay a curse on all them foreign folk and drive their he-goats mad. Or worse. “. . . Apology to Your Presence, Sire . . . But, now, what might you think? About such witchery . . . ?”
His Royal and Imperial Presence thought about it, stroking his bifurcate beard right-side, left-side. Then he said, “Well, We’ll tell you, Genorf. Them country witches such as they had when We was a boy, they was good enough to dry up cows or cure the clap, but nowadays things keep getting more modern and we must move with the times.” And as a reward for the information, he was Graciously Pleased to direct that Genorf be given a large bowl of suet dumplings plus six and a third skillings plus a big glass of shnops. “And to make certain it be good shnops, come, We'll have one with thee; come to think of it, all of ye have one with We,” Ignats Louis sometimes had difficulty with his pronouns; “and if the Frow High Housekeep’ don’t like the smell, tell her to hold her nose as she drinks it: Graustark and Ruritania, oh haw haw! We can’t wait to hear!”
Avar-Ister, Second Capital of the Triune Monarchy (there really was no “Third Capital”), had gone to bed in a rather ugly mood. Not only were traces of some awful bad gunk coming down the Ister from the general direction of the First Capital, but the Post Office had just gotten a new issue three-pennikk stamp (one and one-half pennikks being equal to two-thirds of a copperka, except . . . but we had perhaps leave that for now) of which the Avar legend lacked a Silent Letter... the incomparable richness of the Avar idiom containing many silent letters. Avar National- ites at once revived the traditional cry of, “Are we going to stand for
this?” with its terrifying reply of “Nudgeszemeldinkelfrasz!” or (in Avar) No. Tom-toms did not precisely beat all night, but — Shortly after sunrise, well, to be perhaps needlessly blunt, conveniently after breakfast, a concourse of Avar Patriotic Intransigents began to move grimly along the Korszo towards the Viceroy’s Castle: when, suddenly from behind a cloud was heard an Angel’s Voice singing the Pannonian National Anthem. Not realizing that it was actually the voice of Katinka Ivanovna Dombrovski — she had learned it in Zagreb one bleak winter from an Avar exile who, whenever she slacked learning it, pinched her, severely — the Avars naturally stopped dead. And stood at full attention, only turning their heads to watch the Autogondola-Invention fly the full length of the Korszo from east to west, joining in the singing of the first 35 verses; then, the Autogondola-Invention having unaccountably gone into reverse, turning their heads to watch it fly the full length of the Korszo from west to east backwards, joining in the singing of the second 35 verses: who was not there to hear Madame К. I. Dombrovski render the moving lines:
“Hoy, Pa-n-no-nia, hoy!
Yoy, Pa-n-no-ni-a, yoy!
O-oy, Pa-n-no-ni-a, oy!”
in full coloratura, has not heard anything.
But must not all things come to an end? Yes.
It was whilst prolonging the final, poignant, patriotic, oy that the voice of Katerina Ivanovna went briefly hoarse... then flat... then cracked... then gave out entirely. And it was at that moment that the Autogondola- Invention suddenly went completely out of control and made what may be called, to coin a phrase, a “crash-landing,” on the top-deck of the R. and I. Lighthouse Tender Empress Anna-Gertruda, fortunately without anyone being injured . . . and with it steamed upriver towards Bella. The cheering Avars then all went back home to put hot compresses on their stiff but patriotic necks.
Who would ever know? . . . but somehow Dr. Eszterhazy, having reflected much upon it during free moments of his aerial tour, thought he now understood more of the Mystery of the Goats. There being no tax on the she-goats, there was no need to conceal them. As for the he-goats, they being needed only during breeding-season, why it was they who were herded up into the far wild pastures in the mountains in hopes of avoiding the tax-collectors — and it was evidently only there that the hallucinatory plants grew — nightshade! traditional in witches’ brew! — As for the attested reports of the strange music (surely not upon pan-pipes!?), one must simply, mentally, stamp it: unsolved. Eszterhazy